Tuesday, February 18, 2003

...the one-two punch of the dot-com implosion and slowing economyhas restored to the industry a sense of level-headedness, emphasis ondue diligence, and realistic expectations.

"Basically we are taking our time and building companies. We're notgoing to ramp product development and teams ahead of customer needs,which is generally what firms have been doing. We're more on theconservative side."

"One of the most important things is the really great people youcan recruit. This was not the case in 1999-2000," Ahn says. Plenty ofsmart, talented people are looking for their next opportunity in awell-back startup. Better yet for entrepreneurs, these execs haverealistic compensation expectations.

The second advantage of this market is access to resources such aslawyers, consultants, and recruiters, all of whom were rather busier ayear ago.

Ahn also steered his own startup, an experience that providedperspective on the life of an entrepreneur. He co-founded and waspresident of Endpoint Technologies Inc., which developed and soldreal-time manufacturing control systems for semiconductor deviceproduction. The company was later acquired by Applied Materials.

"I learned that I didn't know that much, that it's a lot differentdoing it yourself as opposed to coaching someone else. Entrepreneurshipis best left to the professionals."

Today, the best potential markets he is looking at are thosehardware, software, and services helping the transition of businesscommunications from analog to digital, marrying the Internet withvoice, video and real-time communications.